In 1204 the Western participants of the Fourth Crusade, ignoring their principal objective, captured Constantinople, extended their dominion over the Greek lands and founded the Latin Empire of Romania. The Byzantine court was compelled to seek refuge in neighboring Nicaea. From there the Greeks waged an arduous and unrelenting struggle for about sixty years, until the capital was reconquered and the Emperor once more ascended his throne.
  Of all the states founded by the Franks, the most important was the French Principality of the Morea. Its Prince, Geoffroy de Villehardouin, in his endeavor to impose his authority on the entire Peloponnese, was at great pains to conquer Lacedaemon; but it was only in 1248 that his successor, William II de Villehardouin, succeeded in effecting the conquest of Laconia, with the reduction of the fortes of Monembassia. A year later (1249) , perceiving the strategic importance of the hill of Mystra, he raised a castle, the ruins of which survive to this day, on its summit.
According to a typical descriptive passage in the Chronicle of the Morea:                     
<< After searching through these parts,
He found a strange hill, as though cut off from the mountain, About a mile  away, above Lacedaemonia.
Wishing to fortify this hill, he ordered a castle to be built on its summit And he named it Myzethra, for that was how they called it,
And he made it a splendid castle, with fine fortifications...>>
By 1249 French knights clad in coats-of-mail had thus encamped on the hill of Mystra in order to <<guard the place>>
  The name Mystra probably derived from the shape of the hill, which resembled that of a Myzethra(popular cheese), or from some local governor whom the Franks found there and whose name was either Myzethra or profession that of a maker of myzethra cheeses.
  Ten years later, in 1259 Villehardouin was taken prisoner at the battle of Pelagonia and held captive for three years by the Emperor Michael VIII Palaeologus. In the meantime, the Byzantines had recaptured Constantinople from the Franks, and the Emperor put pressure to bear on William to pay ransom for his release y the cession of the castles of the Peloponnese. William finally agreed to purchase his liberty and that of his barons in  exchange for the cession of such castles in Laconia as he would designate. According to the Chronicle of Morea, he decided:
<< To give to the Emperor in exchange for their liberty,
The castles of Monembassia and le Grand-Maigne
And , last of all, the most beautiful, that of Myzetha itself>>
Thus in 1262 the Greeks became masters of the castle and Byzantine Mystra entered into its golden age.
But Villehardouin, now at liberty returned to the Peloponnese, in an attempt to appease his allies who regarded the agreement as the first step in a Byzantine attempt to break up the French Principality of the Morea. At the head of a military contingent, he soon made his appearance in the Lacadaemonian plain. What his intentions really were are not known.
  The Byzantine garrison of Mistra immediately informed Constantinople that Villehardouin had violated the agreement and was preparing to attack the castle. The infuriated Emperor sent a strong force under General Macrinos, who landed at Monemvasia, with orders to deal a mortal blow at Villehardouin. Two years, however, passed without any decisive change being effected in the disposition of the opposing forces.
  Finally, in 1264, the Byzantine army, provoked by Villehardouin, was compelled to fight at Macryplaghi - in the defile which leads from Megalopolis and Leondari to the Messenian plain - where it was annihilated. General Macrinos was taken prisoner by the Franklin prince.
  After this victory, William did in effect consider launching an attack on Mystra.; but a revolt of the natives of Arcadia, which he could not ignore, caused him to postpone the enterprise.
  The constant friction and frequent campaigns between Byzantines and Franks during the course of these two years  created a feeling of insecurity among the inhabitants of lacedaemonia, as Sparta was called in the Middle Ages. They consequently begun to abandon their homes in the plain and to settle at the foot of the hill, where they felt more secure under the shallow of the castle of Mystra.
  Thus, long before 1300 - more precisely, in the years following the battle of Macryplaghi - Mystra had begun to be inhabited. Churches and houses too soon began to dot the hillside. William II de Villedardouin, the Frankish Prince, had died in 1278, and after his death the Morea became a dependency of the Angevin House of Naples.
  With the continuous decline of Frankish power - not only in Laconia but throughout Greece - Mystra's role in the revived Byzanitne Empire soon acquired a new and highly significant aspect. In the course of two centuries it became << the Florence of the East>> and the intellectual movements it engendered and fostered came to the regarded with respect beyond the boundaries of the Byzantine Empire and throughout the countries of the West. Furthermore, Mystra was to set the seal  on its brief but brilliant history.
  From 1264 to 1300 Mystra was the headquarters of a Strategus with the title of Cephali. His term of office lasted only one year but his range of authority was considerable. In 1308 the administrative system underwent a change. The strategoi no longer gave up office at the end of a year but became permanent governors of an unlimited term. It was in this capacity that Cantacuzenus(1308-1316) and Andronicus Palaeologus Asan (1316-1323) ruled at Mistra. The new form of administration contributed much to the development of the fortified city, where, even before the mid 14th century, building activity was on a by no means negligible scale. Numerous churches were raised and the Metropolitan Bishop of Lacedaemonia transferred the seat of his diocese to Mystra.The momentum of architectural  activity increased and the town, which was becoming both a political center and a military headquarters, developed rapidly.By the mid-14th century Mystra attainted the status of a capital of a Greek principality, called a Despotate. It was no longer governed by a Strategus, but a nobleman closely related to the imperial family with the title of Despot and a life-long tenure of office.In 1348 Manuel, second son of the Emperor John VI Cantacuzenus, assumed office as first Despot of Mystra amid scenes of considerable pomp. During his reign the state flourished and Mystra was embellished with new churches and buildings. In 1380  Manuel was succeeded by Matthew Catacuzenus. In 1383 Catacuzenoi were replaced by Palaeologoi, of whom the first Despot was Theodore I Palaeologus (1383 - 1407) and the second Theodore II Palaeologus (1407 - 1443).
  In 1443, in the last twilight years of the Empire, Constantine XI Palaeologus, subsequently martyr and last emperor, was crowned Despot. This intelligent prince assumed a heavy responsible towards the Byzantine world, which was already in full decline. Consistently endeavoring to hold on to the last remnants of the once all-powerful Empire, he aimed at protecting the Peloponnese at least for the menace of Ottoman invasion. He therefore strengthened the fortifications and concluded military agreements. He also rebuild the Hexamilion wall on the isthmus of Corinth and made contact with the Pope with a view to forming an alliance with Hungary. But Sultan Murad II, anxious to secure his rear from such an active and dangerous opponent, arrived in the Peloponnese in 1446 with strong forces and obliged Constantine to pay tribute to him.
  Two years later (in 1448) the Emperor John VIII Palaelogus died and was succeeded by his brother Constantine. On 6 January 1449 the noblemen Alexius Philanthropinos and Manuel Cantacuzenus arrived at Mystra from Constantinople << in order to crown the Despot, Noble Constantine, Emperor..>> Three months later, on 12th March, Constantine reached the great Christian capital and ascended the throne which, in a few years time, he was to bathe with his own sacrificial blood, after combating the enemy with prodigious valour.
  At Mystra Constantine was succeeded by his younger brothers, Thomas and Demetrius, whose melancholy fate was to end the glorious Byzantine period of the Despotate by surrendering the fortified city to the Turks in 1460.
In 1464 Mistra was besieged by Sigismund Malatesta, who captured the town, but not the castle. After submitting the place to frightful pillage, he departed, carrying away the mortal remains of George Gemistus (Plethon), the new-Platonic philosopher, which he laid beside the tombs of other learned men, former members of his court, in the magnificent church of the Tempio Maletestiano at Rimini.
  Notwithstanding the Turkish occupation, the years that followed were peaceful at Mystra. The town prospered commercially, the population reached the figure 10.000. In 1687 Francesco Morosini, the Venetian General, succeeded in capturing Mystra, which he made the headquarters of the Venetian governor of the province of Braccio di Maina. But in 1715 the town once more fell to the Turks who held it until 1770, when Count Orloff's fleet anchored off the coast of the Mani. Russians and Greeks together besieged Mystra and compelled the Turkish garrison to surrender. A savage massacre of Turks was only halted by the Metropolitan Bishop himself, at the head of the clergy. A few months later Mystra, together with all that part of the Peloponnese which had risen in arms at Orloff's instigation, suffered the most appalling reprisals at the hands of the Turks. For ten years Albanian bands subjected the land to pillage, arson and depopulation. During this period the population of Mystra was considerably reduced, and after the departure of the Albanian bands the inhabitants numbered no more than 5,000.
  When the War of Independence broke out in 1821 Mystra was one of the first towns to shake off the Turkish yoke. Throughout the war - indeed, right up to its very end - Mystra's contribution to the national cause, both in men and material, was considerable, despite the fact that in 1825 the original  Byzantine city had, for the last time, been burned and pillaged by Ibrahim Pasha in the course of the Egyptian invasion of the Peloponnese.
  The foundation of the modern town of Sparta by King Otho in 1834 spelt the doom of Mystra. The first families that settled in the new urban agglomeration in the plain came from the former Byzantine city. Others, descending the sides of the sleep slope, built the modern village of Mistra at the foot of the hill.

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